*** [Keywords: 2019 Christ Lutheran Church sermon Apostle Paul English translation Garden of Gethsemane God's own timetable Grandmother Lois How long, O Lord? Jesus Laura Martin pastor MSP Middle Eastern people Ministry Site Profile Mother Eunice New Testament Greek On Seeking Mustard Seed People Prophet Habakkak Psalm 37 Psalms able to guard airing grievances all of us together all that is not right with the world all we see and hear also be translated angry another piece another word authentically grateful for big God big issues bodies of water challenging times chaos chemotherapy clear the air commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will act contention dealing with pain deepen our despair demands desired results destruction disciples discouraged discrimination disillusionments emotional illnesses entrusted to him even the smallest evidences of God's grace exhorted to do the same faith faith inadequate faith is too small faith of another family of origin feeling judged full flowering tree hang onto faith hateful have to bear headed to cross hiddenness hold the faith for each other holding out hope honest honest expressions hope and encouragement hopes how much more if you all have faith if you all hold faith if you have faith the size of a mustard seed injustice instability it is enough because of god's grace items job promotions labor under these challenges lamented life out of death little bit of faith losing job macro level marital strife me in Jesus mental merciful God micro level mulberry tree mustard seed off balance other places in the world our Savior in whom we trust our own city pastoral interactions patience people of faith pie in the sky planted in the ground plural you poem political mood praise God anyway prayer prison proclamation of faith protege Timothy relate righteous shall live by faith serious illnesses shriveled up dead dried up seed singular you solutions elude something good something significant southerners speak these concerns standalone people strife struggling suffering sufficient that is faith this congregation this country throughout the ages time of pain tiniest amount of faith trials trust uncomfortable unrest unspoken cares uprooted cast into sea violence wait and watch waiting not our favorite thing way they thought we are made righteous weary what God was going to do what's a person to do? y'all you in your faith]

April 21, 2019. We celebrate this Easter Sunday with a simple, six-word phrase: Jesus is risen from the dead. Pastor Stephanie preaches on what these words meant to Mary Magdalene and the disciples, and what they continue to mean for us today. *** Transcript *** Happy Easter once again to all of you. It's such a glorious day to see each other, to sing, and to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord together. Now, as I was preparing for this message I was remembering how, a few years back, I learned about an interesting website, an online magazine called SMITH. (Just like the name sounds: S-M-I-T-H.) It's a collection of six word memoirs. I imagine there are some of you out here who are familiar with that, because it's been taken up by business, education, and other entities, to employ the tactics that they use. It was started as a challenging way to depict the lives of people and their wisdom about life, in only six words. Six words -- think about that. With such a tight economy of words, one really has to think about what one wants to communicate in that short space. Challenging though it was, the concept really caught on. The online magazine site eventually had so much material from contributors that it distilled what it considered the most thought-provoking into a few books. The names of them, of course titled with the requisite six words, are: Not Quite What I Was Planning, and the later edition is titled It All Changed In An Instant. Both phrases intended to pique our interests, to find out more. So I decided to bite. I searched through several examples of these memoirs captured in the six brief words. Here are a few examples. I will start with a very poignant one, but that's only because it is believed that this six word challenge was given to the famed writer Ernest Hemingway, and his is a very sad, pithy little one. He was challenged to write a short story in six words, and here's what he came up with: "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn." One person recovering from a breakup wrote: "I still make coffee for two." On the same theme comes this, from a person with a gift for expressing double meanings: "Our perfect match burned out quickly." Then there are other six-word memoirs that make you wonder what kind of response the writer wanted to elicit from us. "I am turning into my mother." Anybody relate? "Named me 'Joy,' Didn't work out." How about this one: "Never really finished anything besides cake." Here's a light-hearted version from screenwriter Nora Ephron: "Secret of life: marry an Italian." Lots of other good ethnicities too. This was on the website yesterday, for those who appreciate a good brew (and I know there are many of you present): "Easter Bunny Lager: contains more hops." And this one made me laugh: "Even I can't keep my secrets." The reviewers of the site also got in on the game by trying their hand at this as well. Because why not? I thought the brilliance of the New York Times one expressed the six-word memoir idea the best for me: "The brilliance is in the brevity." Brevity, having a succinct message, getting to the core truth. There's something to be said about that, in this world filled with ideas and words barraging us continually. When it comes to the mystery and beauty of the reason why we are celebrating today, it cannot be said any better than within these six words: Jesus is risen from the dead. These are the words that the breathless women carried from the empty tomb back to the other disciples. These are the words that have been passed on ever since, from person to person, from community to community, spreading to every continent in the last two millennia. It is these six words that have spoken to countless individuals whose lives were near death, broken by pain and suffering, by sin and darkness, and given them new life, hope, and purpose. Because death did not have the final word with Jesus, it does not have the final word with us either. So this is the message behind the comfort that is available to those with terminal illnesses, and to those who have lost loved ones. Death, with its awfulness and sorrow, does not have the last word. There is reason for hope, and there's something to hold onto. Because Jesus is risen from the dead. These six words tell us also that fear does not need to hold us in its grip. They tell us that we're never alone, even when it feels as though we've been abandoned. They let us know that light is shining somewhere, even when it seems that the darkness has won. It says that yes, death is a part of life, but it is not the ultimate end of it. It says that when we are weak, there is strength to carry us through. It says that when we are lost and bewildered, we will be found and restored. All the claims and promises that Jesus made to his followers, that have been passed on to us in the holy scriptures, are gloriously confirmed as true and reliable. All because Jesus is risen from the dead. These six words tell us that evil will not triumph over good. The six words give us a frame of reference that allows us to keep on working for justice, to pursue what is right and good, to focus on the long game rather than the short one. These are the words that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German martyr who opposed the Nazis and was forced into seclusion, taught his students in the secret seminary that he managed to hold. The meaning of these six words served as a drum beat for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles in seeking civil rights for all. The truth of these words gives courage to religious orders of women in our time, who risk arrest for giving water to migrants languishing in the desert. We can know that oppression and evil will ultimately crumble before the truth that is: Jesus is risen from the dead. How many lives have been transformed, starting with Mary Magdalene and her companions falling to the ground in utter shock upon hearing these six words? It is the reality of these six words that explain the countless number of people whose hearts have been burning within them because of the presence of God's spirit, alive and present, to comfort them, to give them hope, to grant them peace. When something mystical, yet so compelling, convinces us that we are not alone, but indeed that the risen Christ is among and with us -- that is when we say Jesus is risen from the dead. I found the words of the men in dazzling white who spoke to the women at the tomb very interesting. They stated plainly, "He is not here. He has risen." But then they gave the women a very, very important charge. They said: remember. Remember that Jesus told you these things, that he would be crucified and then rise again. Remember. That is a very good charge for us as well. When I'm feeling frustrated that things aren't going well, I need to pause, take a deep breath, and remember that Jesus is risen from the dead. And that puts the minutiae of life into perspective. When even bigger and more important things seem to be headed in the wrong direction, you and I can also remember that ultimately, God is bringing all things to a glorious and great conclusion, as we heard in the Isaiah reading. When we sense that we are swimming upstream, remember that the one who holds the keys to life is with us, and is keeping our heads above water. When the daily news makes us wonder if evil is not really getting the upper hand, remember that God is good and God is in charge. When we find ourselves losing hope, remember that God's love triumphs over even the darkest of days. It was when the women -- who had fallen down on their faces with fear and sorrow -- heard these words calling them to remember, that they did remember. And they got up and got about what they needed to be doing, because now they could see everything within a new light. And that was to get on with life, a renewed life with purpose, to go and tell the others to remember. And so it is with us. We are called to remember, and to remind each other to remember that Jesus is risen from the dead. And that, my friends, changes everything. Thanks be to God for our risen Savior. It is to him we sing our praises as we stand to sing the hymn of the day. *** Keywords *** 2019, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Stephanie Doeschot, Isaiah 65:17-25, Luke 24:1-12

March 6, 2019. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. This Ash Wednesday evening, Pastor Stephanie preaches on the meaning of the sign of the cross of ash on our foreheads, of Jesus calling us forth to honesty, and on what we do in Lent. *** Transcript *** I wonder if you remember the nursery rhyme "Ring around the rosie / A pocket full of posies / Ashes, ashes / We all fall down." Anybody remember that one? Yes? One explanation of the origin of this nursery rhyme connects it with the Bubonic plague, a deadly plague that happened during the Elizabethan era in England. People were succumbing to that plague left and right, by the thousands everyday. Drawings from that era include pictures of bodies being loaded up in carts or wagons. The art portrayed the reality of grimness during that plague. The rationale for connecting that nursery rhyme with the plague stems from the fact that one of the symptoms of the plague was a red rash, which is often found in circles on the body. That was thought to be the ring around the rosie. I certainly never knew that. There was widespread thought that the plague came from bad smell that existed everywhere. And so, people would carry packets of nice-smelling posies to ward off the smell. "Ring around the rosie / A pocket full of posies / Ashes, ashes / We all fall down," was simply a description of what was happening every day, all the time, for these people. If that is truly the origin of this schoolyard chant, it's a far, far cry from the way I remember singing it, and saying it with laughter with my friends on the schoolyard playground. This may or may not be the true origin of the rhyme. Sometimes we don't know about these things. But regardless, there is truth in the last sentence: ashes, ashes, we all fall down. For here we are on the Wednesday that signals the beginning of the season of Lent, the day we call Ash Wednesday. At the lunch meeting that Katie Ciorba and I had with our recent confirmands, we shared around the table our favorite church holidays, as an icebreaker while we ate lunch. Not surprisingly, Ash Wednesday was not mentioned by a single person, although Lent did get a favorable comment at one point. And yet it's such an important day in the life of the church, because it calls us to honest assessment, something rarely asked of us anywhere else. Ashes, ashes. We also come to death at some point. We prefer to dance around the roses. We prefer to ward off anything that confronts us with our own mortality, don't we? Our society supports that, in doing everything we can to avoid thinking about or preparing for our own deaths. So, we have our own ways of carrying around pockets full of posies to ward off the reality of death. Now, there's certainly nothing at all wrong with seeking the greatest health we can enjoy. We should do that. But at times, we are unrealistic about the effects of aging and frailty that our bodies will eventually display. That unrealistic bent leads us to denial of the truth of the matter because the truth is, in the end, each one of us will succumb. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. Tonight you'll be invited to come forward to receive the sign of ashes on your forehead, a sign that will be made with ashes that were made (as I told the children) from the burning of Palm Sunday palms. The words you hear as you receive the ashes, if you choose to come forward, will be, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Ashes in the form of a cross will be placed on your forehead with this reminder of mortality. Some would say this is depressing. It can be. But the words are meant to remind us of the temporary nature of life. The words are meant to sound the trumpet for us, the loud alarm, that announcement that our lives do not last forever. We are formed from dust and one day we will all return to dust. To remember that our lives are temporary, is to remember to use them well. Prayers at the end stages of life often ask God to help us to live as those prepared to die, so that in our living and in our dying, our life may be in Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord. The words from Joel speak about fasting and mourning and returning to God. All of these are called forth from God. But Joel is quick to remind us that it is the intentionality of our hearts that needs assessment. Otherwise our outer exhibitions of mourning can belie a mockery of what God wants to see, as an inner commitment of hearts tenderized, opened up, rent apart by the truth of our need for God. Matthew says the same thing in different ways: get integrated, bring the disparate parts of yourself together. The words in Matthew's gospel call us out on our tendency toward hypocrisy. Jesus' instruction about prayer, like so much of what Jesus says, is a bit hyperbolic, exaggerated simply to make a point. His point is not to put down the act of praying in public, but to correct those who use prayer to pretend that they are religious, and to help themselves bolster up the idea that they are among the most faithful of all. And so Jesus says you might be better off giving up the showmanship and becoming humble, and doing the very hard work of prayer -- the hard work of daily prayer in a closet, if that's what it needs to be. He is speaking like Joel to the issue of hypocrisy and superficiality. I suspect that each one of us has come to this Ash Wednesday service for different reasons, but all of us are looking for something. Perhaps for a definite start to the Lenten season, a way to set the season apart. Others, perhaps, have come for inspiration and ideas. Some of you might be seeking a chance to think, to get centered, to decide will you give up something, or will you take on a new habit? Others come to services like this to try to get closer to Jesus, to try to identify with what he experienced. My hope for all of us is that no matter what we do this Lenten season, we will try to get honest -- honest with ourselves, honest with God, and honest with one another. It's honesty, shedding our pretenses in the ways in which we fool even ourselves, that will be an antidote to our individual and collective hypocrisy that creeps up at times. Say what you will about the vast sins of David that preceded his prayer of confession that we read responsively from Psalm 51. His sins were indeed grievous. But this prayer speaks of the great truth proclaimed by David that relates to us all -- that his offense is primarily against God, and so it is to God that he appeals in his recognition of his frailty. To the best of David's ability his confession is honest. He admits his brokenness. He allows himself to be humbled. He is ready for a journey like one he's never really taken before -- one where God is now the primary leader of his life. His own pride in what he had accomplished, up to this point, is seen for what it was: a disaster that led to sin and heartache. He is ready to throw himself on the mercy of God to begin anew. And that is what we do in Lent. We are beginning the journey of Lent together, and it's always wise to start out with honesty. We are told in Luke's gospel that Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem. He knew that he was heading toward the week we now call Holy. Along the way, on that journey, his disciples had many reality checks. Jesus loved them too much to allow them to continue in their own self-deceptions. He called forth honesty and he spoke the truth to them with love, for their benefit. And he does the same for us. The ashes we will receive on our foreheads can be a reminder of his call to exhibit honesty. They can remind us that we are human, and in the end our struggles and sins and accomplishments and skills all turn to dust. We are mortal, and we easily sin. The shape of the cross that we made from the ashes will also be imperfect. A nice, even cross of ash is hard to make with fumbling thumbs and fingers. So the crosses will be imperfect too, because we are human. But the crosses will remind us that despite our sin, despite our humanness, we are sons and daughters of God, forgiven and freed from the weight of our failings, forgiven and loved in our mortality, invited into a journey of walking more closely with God toward the deeper life. Thanks be to God for his good word to us. *** Keywords *** 2019, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Stephanie Doeschot, Ash Wednesday, Joel 2:1-2,12-17, Psalm 51:1-17, cleansing, pardon, Matthew 6:1-6,16-21, almsgiving, prayer, fasting, treasures, Luke 9:51

January 20, 2019. The gospel story today is the Wedding at Cana, and Pastor Stephanie talks about chronos time versus kairos time in Jesus' response to his mother's request when the wine gave out. *** Transcript *** You know what they say: timing is everything. Whether you're telling a joke, making a dramatic entrance, or popping the question, timing is everything. When the timing is right, people erupt with laughter at your punchline. When the timing is off you might hear a deafening silence just when you get to that part. When timing is right, your entrance on the stage makes a statement. When your timing is off people barely notice. When timing is right, someone smiles radiantly in response to your proposal. But if your timing would be off you might get a laugh and a wave of the hand and a comment that says, "You must be joking." Ouch, that would hurt. Timing is everything, which is what makes this wedding story at Cana such a scene. Jesus, his mother, and his disciples are all guests, and are probably having a pretty good time. Weddings in that day were quite the occasion. Many times they lasted up to seven days in duration. But at this particular wedding, something happens three days in that could turn the tide from celebration to awkward embarrassment of the hosts. No, it's not the toasts that were given by the maid of honor or the best man that might be in bad taste. We've all experienced those awkward moments. And it's not that the wedding officiant mispronounced the names of the bride and groom or confused the vows, such as happens many times in a romantic comedy movie. It's just that the wine ran out too early. When wedding celebrations last seven days, running out of wine on day three signifies that something in the planning and the timing of the whole process went terribly wrong. Whatever the host had imagined would be needed for each of the days of celebration was off by a long shot. Now if it were us, we might whisper nervously to some friends and ask them to please make a run to the local wine shop and pick up some more. But in this time and place, that was obviously not an option. Running out of wine too early wasn't just a little embarrassing in this case, it was a social disaster. Those of you who especially enjoy a glass of fine wine will be happy to learn or be reminded that in the Bible, wine isn't just a social drink. It is much, much more than that. It's a sign of harvest. It's a sign of God's abundance. It's a sign of joy and celebration and gladness. So, to run short on wine meant experiencing a shortage of blessing. Worse than ruining a joke by messing up the punchline, poor planning on the quantity of wine needed would seem like awful timing. The wine has run out before the wedding has, and it's a potential catastrophe if it becomes widely known. Now, Jesus' mother doesn't seem to have much of a sense of timing either, at first glance. At least that's what Jesus seems to think by his comments. They have no wine, she says to her son. We don't know whether she was close to the families of the bride or groom and so eager to help, or whether she was just particularly sensitive and horrified at this kind of social faux pas. Because however much we appreciate hospitality today, the people of Jesus' time and culture practiced it as more than that. It was practiced as a survival skill, a way of looking after one another in a hostile and perilous environment, and an assurance of being looked after in return. No wonder it became a matter of honor as well. So, Mary expected Jesus to do something about this grave matter. But Jesus seems to think that this is another instance of bad timing. "Woman," he responds, taking an oddly formal tone with his mother. "Woman, what concern is that to you or to me? My hour, my time has not come." But Mary continues to act as though it is time for action. Rather than raise an eyebrow at his tone, or offer a counterpoint to his assertion, she turns to the servants and tells them simply "do whatever he tells you." Now it could be that, like a good Jewish mother, Mary knew her son would come around. Protest he might, but eventually he'll listen to his mother. Or, it could be that Mary knew how to tell time better than Jesus thought -- she was, after all, the one who brought him into the world. The one who heard the promises about him, who cared for him as a baby and watched him grow. The one who dried his tears as a child, and followed him herself when he became an adult. So perhaps we shouldn't be surprised if Mary recognized that wherever her son was on the scene, it was no ordinary time. Well, you know the rest of the story. Jesus instructs the servants to fill six large stone basins with water, to draw some of that water out, now turned to wine, and take it to the chief steward. Once again, timing is an issue. Most hosts, you see, serve the very best wine upfront (wanting to make a good impression) and save the cheap wine for later when the palates of the guests have been, shall we say, sufficiently dulled so as to not recognize the drop in quality. But this host, the steward assumes, has bucked that traditional timing and saved the best wine for last. And suddenly this wedding celebration has six huge basins, up to 180 gallons, of fantastic wine -- more than enough for the remaining days of the celebration. No one could now leave this wedding thirsty, for abundance and blessing overflowed. Timing is everything, and not just in this scene but across John's gospel. In fact, there are two kinds of time that animate John's imagination as he writes. One is the kind of time with which we count and track everyday events, the seconds and minutes, the hours and days of our lives. It's the time we spend standing in line, or clocking in at work, or waiting at the stop sign, or waiting for a birthday party to begin. Yes, the primary way that we think of keeping time this way is called "chronos," related to our word "chronology." But there is another kind of time at play, the kind of time that transcends chronos, or ordinary time. It is called "kairos" time, time of opportunity. In kairos time, all that is predictable fades, and what emerges in its place is sheer possibility. This is God's time, and it punctures through the ordinary canvas and clocks of our lives, at unexpected intervals, to reveal a glimpse of the divine. So, when Jesus speaks of "his hour," he isn't speaking of a particular date or time on his calendar. He's talking about the time when God will reveal his glory through his cross, resurrection, and ascension. The time when God will be accessible to all, once and for all. That time, that hour, Jesus says, has not yet come. Now in the coming months, our gospel readings will be coming from Luke. But, if we were to spend more time in the Gospel of John, you would see how frequently John records Jesus as saying something about whether the hour has come for him to do something, or whether it was not the hour. Something like seven or eight times he uses such phrases. Timing was everything for Jesus. And his apostle John took note. After all, even though he wrote this gospel many, many years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, he was still mindful, after all that time, of the significance of timing in Jesus' ministry. The gospel story begins by noting that what is about to be related occurred on the third day. That doesn't often occur in our gospel story, so it calls attention to itself. It makes you wonder whether John is wanting to grab our attention here in a particular way. Maybe he wants us to think, Hey wait a minute, did you just say the "third day" as in "on the third day he was raised from the dead?" Maybe it's his rhetorical way of reminding us what can happen whenever there is need and Jesus is on the scene. Could be he's setting us up for this story to see that in such cases, resurrection and abundance are right around the corner. He might even be inviting us to think of this story as a resurrection story. I wish I had thought of this, but here instead I need to give credit to a friend of mine who noted that maybe this is John's hint at what resurrection is like. What if the life that we live after this life is the most excellent improvement on every one of the best things that we experience in this life? What if what we've been experiencing in this life is like drinking acceptable enough table wine, but resurrection is something like being given the finest of the fine wines in abundance and in community and in fine quality? It makes some sense, since the "life to come" is described often as a table of great abundance and joy. You know, I have to admit: with all this emphasis on hospitality and joy, as I was working through the readings this week I realized that emphasizing the theme of abundance, joy, celebration at what God's presence brings to our lives wasn't completely sitting well with me. Maybe it's because of the nature of this weekend and what we observe with Martin Luther King weekend. I wasn't sure why though, until I read some articles and thought of others whose biblical work I admire, who express their own sense that it can be hard to dwell on the abundance and joy that we experience, when we feel burdened by knowing that life is so very difficult for so many people. Can we honestly celebrate when others are struggling so? I will get back to this. But first I want to acknowledge that this is of course the weekend that we especially honor the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- and really so many others who have sacrificed and pressed on in the march toward a society of greater dignity and equality for all. One of those key civil rights leaders who continues to advocate for justice and mercy is Representative John Lewis. I was able to hear Congressman Lewis speak several years ago at a conference on Christian discipleship. If you know much about his life story, you know that he endured beatings on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on Bloody Sunday in 1965, and on several other occasions. He continues to serve to the best of his ability, even as the decades have passed. John Lewis knows the cost of discipleship, yet he presses on. I remember hearing him speak on the powerful influence of deep joy in his life. Apparently, he speaks of this quite often, because it was easy to find several quotes that he shared on many occasions. This joy, he says, comes directly from his faith in God who is still active, and who has not given up on any of us. Even when Congressman Lewis acknowledges that we as a nation still have much work to do in our quest for racial justice, he also exhorts us to in the meantime continue to celebrate God's abundance and goodness, and to regularly root ourselves in the joy that comes from our faith. "We serve a god of love, mercy, and grace," he preached. "So don't give up, don't give in, and don't give out. Keep the faith, and keep on continuing the story. Be hopeful. Be optimistic. Never become bitter. Do not give in to hate. Continue to look for and celebrate the signs of God's abundant kindness, which are everywhere." Congressman Lewis' tenacious joy mirrors the character, the joy we see bubble up in this text from John. It's the kind of joy we hear in Mary's voice when she expresses a deep trust that Jesus will do what needs to be done. Even if she has no idea how or what or when, she knows that Jesus will take care of it. That is the joy that comes from deep trust and an assurance that God is in the middle of circumstances of life with us. With Jesus' mother, his disciples, and his servants who were the only ones at the wedding who knew where this extraordinary wine had come from, we too can celebrate. Jesus is in the midst of us. He is with us always, whether or not it is the right time for him to do what we hope he would do right now. It is always the time to stop, notice his grace among us, and celebrate his abundant goodness. Just as we acknowledge in our prayers of intercession, we weep with those who weep, even as we rejoice with those who rejoice. And we remember the ancient wisdom of Ecclesiastes, that there is a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance. May our worship continue with an awareness of the god whose presence we celebrate. Timing is everything. And for us, worship is the time for thanks, for praise, for adoration, for recognition of God's great abundance in our lives. *** Keywords *** 2019, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Stephanie Doeschot, Marriage at Cana, Wedding at Cana, John 2:1-11, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, MLK